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1711 U.S.-Philippines Search Exchange - 1700 Miscellaneous
1711 U.S.-Philippines Search Exchange
The United States-Philippines search exchange program involves patent applications filed in the United States which are subsequently followed by corresponding applications filed in the Republic of the Philippines and patent applications filed in the Philippines subsequently followed by corresponding applications filed in the United States.
The program operates as follows:
The applicant files his or her application in the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) which will process the application in the normal manner and examine the application in the usual time sequence.
If the applicant should later file a corresponding application in the Philippines Patent Office, he or she may elect to use the special filing procedure. Under this special filing procedure, applicant files his or her application in the Philippines accompanied by a notice of election to participate in the special procedure, which notice of election contains a certification that the description (excluding references to related applications), claims, and drawings are identical to those of the corresponding application originally filed in the United States. The earlier filed application must be fully identified, and, in applications without a claim of priority, a certified copy of the earlier filed U.S. application must be submitted to the Philippines Patent Office. In addition, applicant must also agree that all amendments to his or her U.S. application will also be made with respect to his or her application filed in the Philippines.
In the USPTO, applicant will regularly file two copies of each amendment. One copy must be marked "Copy for Philippines Patent Office." Upon termination of prosecution, the USPTO shall remove all copies so marked from the U.S. file and promptly forward the same to the Philippines Patent Office.
Election forms for participation in this special program must be signed in duplicate and simultaneously accompany the application to be filed in the Philippines.
Upon receipt of properly filed notice of election, the Philippines Patent Office will notify the USPTO of the election by forwarding one copy of the election forms to the USPTO. The Philippines Patent Office will defer action on the Philippines application pending receipt of information as to the disposition of the application by the USPTO. If no such information is received by the Philippines Office within a reasonable amount of time from the date of filing in the Philippines, the Philippines Office may, either on its own initiative, or at applicant's request, inquire as to the status of the U.S. application and, if desired, proceed with its own independent examination.
Upon disposal of the application by the USPTO, appropriate information will be sent to the Philippines Patent Office which will include all necessary identifying data, whether allowed or abandoned, notice of allowance, copies of documents cited during examination, a copy of the last office action and, when necessary, any earlier actions which may be included by reference in the last action. The Philippines Office will then make its own complete office action based upon the claims as amended with USPTO, performing whatever checks desired and searching for copending interfering applications. Alternatively, the Philippines may request applicant to show cause why the results of the U.S. examination should not be accepted in the Philippines. All avenues of appeal will remain open to the applicant.
Where copending applications are cited and applied during examination in the USPTO full examination will not be forwarded to the Philippines Patent Office, and the fact that a U.S. copending application was cited would be noted as a matter of information, since such references are inapplicable in the Philippines.
Where the application originates in the Philippines Patent Office and is subsequently filed in the USPTO, a similar procedure as outlined above, consonant with U.S. law, will be followed.
It is believed that this program will facilitate the handling of U.S. origin applications filed in the Republic of the Philippines resulting in a savings in time and expense of prosecution to U.S. applicants.
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